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BBC increase VOD offerings with new BBC Store

The BBC has today launched a new digital store, dedicated to bringing the BBC up to date with competitors and offering users exclusive never-before-available content for purchase.

From the morning of Thursday, November 5, users will be able to visit bbcstore.com to register and start using the service. They will be able to purchase shows old and new, with more than 7000 hours of present and previously archived content already available to purchase. This number is set to rise to more than 10,000 hours in a year’s time.

Speaking at a press conference held yesterday (November 4), BBC Commercial Director Bal Samba said: “[This] is the beginning of the amazing prospect of opening up the treasure trove of the BBC television archive, bringing people more of the BBC than ever ever before. The service is has a whole breadth of BBC content, much of it not available anywhere else in the market place and it is beautifully, beautifully curated.”

As well as making classic BBC content such as Only Fools and Horses available for digital purchase, the store will also be selling content for the first time on digital such as Dad’s Army and Morecambe and Wise. There will also be exclusive new programming such as Top Gear: Greatest Hits and Top Gear: The Races, in which Friends star Matt LeBlanc will take viewers through memorable moments from the show’s run so far.

BBC Store will be the most comprehensive range of BBC content anywhere. It will also be fully curated, allowing users to browse content from specially designed collections which will group similar shows together to improve accessibility of content for fans.

MD of BBC Worldwide’s UK Businesses Marcus Arthur said: “It’s got a highly curated element. [The content] is not just set to algorithms, there are people thinking about collections. […] That’s one of the things we think people will really really love.”

Fans of shows that are missing from the store will be able to request content be added via the BBC Store’s Twitter and Facebook handles.

Director of E-Commerce at BBC Store Steve Mozley said: “BBC Store is intended to be a conversation. It’s not our archive, it belongs to the UK. And so for us to go in and start mining the gems of the archived unguided by the audience would seem crass. […] That two way conversation is absolutely key.”

BBC Store will be fully compatible with BBC iPlayer, and purchases will be viewable both on iPlayer and the BBC Store website and app. Episodes of newly-aired BBC shows will be made available to purchase an hour after midnight following the day the show premieres on the BBC. The service will also warn people if they are buying content that is available on iPlayer for free.